Boarlander Beast Boar (Boarlander Bears Book 4) (13 page)

“You first,” he said low. “I like to watch you take off.”

Beck’s heart fluttered like wings in her chest. Whether that was from the giddy feeling he gave her or from her owl proudly testing her wings inside, she didn’t know. Lifting up on the balls of her bare feet, she kissed him, brushed her tongue against his once, then stood back, proud of her animal for the first time in her life. Why? Because Mason loved her, not despite her animal, but partly because of her animal. There was beauty in that—in being accepted completely, owl and all.

With a quick breath to brace for the instant pain that always came with her Change, Beck hunched inward and let her animal explode from her skin. She could see everything in this form. Every facet of Mason’s beautiful, awed face. Every rippling muscle on his body as he strode forward on his powerful legs and lifted his face to watch her circle above him. The trailer park below her was silent in the hours before dawn, but his slow smile was like music. It filled her head with joy. Filled her with the idea that despite the scar he withheld, she was really his. The proud look on his face said as much.

She let off a long screech, inviting his boar to come out and play. She’d never shifted with anyone, and how fitting that Mason was her first. The white of Mason’s breathtaking smile flashed in the instant before his beastly boar ripped from his skin. His coarse, black hair spiked up in a line down his back, and his tusks shone white against the dark. His eyes were the blue inhuman color she’d come to adore instead of fear. She waited to feel afraid as flight shifters often did around shifters higher on the food chain, but all she felt was an overwhelming elation that he was hers. Her safety, her mate, her love. Whooo whooo was the lucky owl? Beck was.

She circled around as Mason trotted for the tree line on those sure, glossy black hooves of his. Dive-bombing closer, she cried out a happy noise as Mason lifted his head, cutting proudly through the air with his razor sharp tusks. Nothing could hurt her with a mate like him. Big barrel chest, powerful front legs, head high, ears erect, tusks ready for ripping, muscles moving easily with every galloping step. Mason was grace and power. He was perfection.
Mine
, her possessive owl declared.

Together they wound through the Boarlander woods, faster and faster, ducking and dodging the ancient pines of the forest. Mason wove through trails just below her, while she zigzagged gracefully around the trunks, her eyes ever dancing back to him. With a grunt, Mason looked up at her, then pushed his legs faster. Damn, he was quick, and she heaved breath as she rushed to keep up with him. God, she loved this—the wind brushing through her flight feathers, the night sounds quieting as they passed, the noise of Mason’s breath below her. Steam puffed in front of his face in the cool night air as he ran faster. She’d never felt joy like this. She’d never felt complete freedom. Changes near her hometown had to be done carefully so that no one saw a snowy owl where one didn’t belong. Here, in Damon’s mountains, she was safe to be herself. Safe to fly fast and far, and her mate was below, pushing her to test her wings.

When they came to a clearing, Mason skidded to a stop, billowing dust around him while Beck spread her wings against the breeze and thrust her talons out to assist in her quick slow-down. Beneath her, the fireflies had kicked up in the meadow. Little blinking dots lit up the night, like stars come to earth. Mesmerized, she circled lower and landed gently on the muscular hump between Mason’s shoulder blades. If her talons digging into his tough hide for balance bothered him, he didn’t show it. Instead, Mason relaxed under her and looked over his shoulder, his eyes soft and contrasting starkly against the ferocity of his warrior face.

And when he gave his attention back to the sparkling meadow, she flapped her wings languidly for balance. One of her downy white feathers floated down onto Mason’s dark bristled fur. How different they were on the outside, but how similar they were on the inside.

The fireflies lifted higher and higher, spreading out into the woods and reminding her that magic moments like this existed to brighten dark days. She’d been overwhelmed by the grit only a few hours ago, and then Mason had soothed her and gifted her beautiful relief.

Mason had been wrong when he’d questioned if he could make her happy.

Because here, in the firefly meadow, clinging to the strong back of the boar she loved, Beck had never been happier.

Mason cracked his knuckles and paced in front of 1010 again. Maybe he wouldn’t be so nervous about meeting Ryder if Beck didn’t look sick to her stomach with worry.

Robbie would be here any minute with Beck’s five-year-old boy, and so much was riding on this. Flight shifters were notoriously fierce parents, and Beck held information about Ryder close to her chest. Drawing details from her lips about her son was like pulling teeth, and when he’d asked Beck, “Why?” she’d told him, “I guess I’ve always had to hide him away to protect him, so I learned to keep him to myself.”

Made sense. She’d been raising Ryder in the human world, distant from any shifters, and with a human mate who didn’t accept the animals in either her or Ryder.

Beck’s body rang with tension as she stood near the entrance of the Boarland Mobile Park, talking into the phone too low for Mason to hear all the way from back here. Likely, she was directing Robbie where to go. God, what was taking him so long? Anyone with eyes in their head could see Beck needed to see her son, and now each minute was dragging.

The other Boarlanders were down in Saratoga, participating in a charity bake sale Beck had set up for them. It was at the community center, and she was supposed to be making a pro-shifter speech in a few hours, but she’d been right when she had told him everything worked on Robbie’s schedule. He was already two hours later than what they’d planned.

Beck stood on tiptoes, watching the road, and Mason could hear it now—the soft rumble of a truck engine kicking up gravel in the distance.

He was going to be sick. This was his shot at a family, but if Ryder didn’t take to him, he had no doubt in his mind Beck would tuck her little owl under one arm and sacrifice her happiness for her son’s.

Shit. He should’ve read some of those parenting books Beaston had. Now he was panicking, feeling like Ryder would hate him for sure, Beck would leave, and the cracks in his soul that Esmerelda had left would be blasted wide open.

Breathe.

Mason forced himself to sit on the bottom stair of 1010’s porch because every instinct urged him to rush to Beck’s side and rub her shoulders and promise her everything would be okay. This wasn’t about him, though. It was her hurt and Ryder’s pain, and his sole responsibility in this matter would be to listen and be there for them as they picked their way through this.

An old, rust-eaten, navy Chevy bounced and bumped under the Boarland Mobile Park sign, then smoothed out as Robbie hit the newly paved part of the road. Through the window, Robbie gave Beck a hate-filled glare as she waved back in response to the little hand waving out the window.

“Robbie, stop!” she cried as he coasted past her.

“Momma!” Ryder yelled through the open window, reaching for her.

Goddamn, Mason hated Robbie. Clenching his hands, Mason stood as the asshole made his way in a straight line toward 1010, forcing Beck to jog after his truck.

Robbie skidded to a stop right in the newly sodded yard and shoved the door open with a
creeeaak
. He barreled toward Mason, but halted when Mason stood to his full height and gave him a don’t-you-fuckin’-dare glare.

“I just want to see my kid’s new dad in the light. It’s your fault, right?”

Behind Robbie, Beck was pulling a little golden-haired boy from the front seat and hugging him tight against her chest.

“Man, I don’t want this. I don’t want you cutting out on your kid’s life,” Mason said low.

“Yeah, well I did some thinkin’. And Beck used to be a pushover. She was. She let me have girlfriends for years before she asked for that divorce. If I said ‘jump,’ she said ‘how high,’ but now suddenly she can’t get on board with doing something that will give her son a good life?”

“By
stripping
the animal out of him?” Mason gritted out, about to lose his shit on this motherfucker’s face. “There isn’t anything wrong with him. Nothing. You, on the other hand…you’re all kinds of messed up for even considering torture as an option.”

Robbie huffed a humorless breath, his dark eyes sparking with fury. After running his hands through his highlighted, stupid-looking hair, he looked like a pissed-off porcupine. Mason could squash him with a look if he wanted.

“I want to see the shit-hole you’ll be raising my son in.”

“What?” Mason asked as the idiot shoved past him and up the stairs. “We haven’t even discussed that stuff, and this isn’t my trailer.”

Robbie stomped across the new porch in heavy soled work boots, but yelped when his leg went straight through a floorboard. He let off a string of muttered curses. The dangling
0
of the house number that had been holding on by a single rusty nail for so long suddenly loosed and fell onto Robbie’s head with a resonating
cong.
An accidental laugh huffed from Mason’s chest. 1010 was fighting back.

“What the fuck?” Robbie shouted, struggling to free his lanky leg from the splintered jaws of the porch where he’d sunk hip-deep.

“Ten-ten apparently doesn’t like being called a shit-hole. You just got your ass kicked by a thirty-five-year-old trailer, mister. Might want to leave now before it eats you whole.”

Robbie struggled out of the broken porch like a beached trout, then stood in a huff and rubbed his head. “It’s your fault Beck is being such a pain in the ass about all this.”

“Okay.” Mason bit his tongue against the verbal lashing he wanted to give this entitled little shit because that wouldn’t help Beck or Ryder.

“I don’t like him,” Robbie yelled, jamming his finger at Mason.

Beck approached the porch, Ryder clinging to her tightly, and tears had already rimmed her eyes. “You don’t have to like him. Who I pick has nothing to do with you, just like I couldn’t say anything about who you picked.”

“Well…” Robbie hooked his hands on his hips. “I think it’s messed up that you came here to work, and instead you moved on inappropriately fast from what we had.”

Mason pursed his lips and convinced himself not to whack this moron upside the head. Robbie had started banging Shelly way before he and Beck were even separated, so the fact that he thought he had any right to judge her was downright laughable.

Beck sighed and looked exhausted. “Can we talk about this in private, away from Ryder?”

“Nah, our little freak should hear what a whore his mom—
gulp
.”

Mason tightened his hand around Robbie’s throat and narrowed his eyes at the little cretin. “I could pop your face off your body with little effort, and you calling Beck a whore in front of her kid is making that prospect mighty tempting. Best go carry this conversation on in private, and mind the names you call her, yeah?”

Robbie made choking sounds and scratched at Mason’s fingers, trying to loosen his grip. “Okay,” he rasped out.

Mason gave him an empty smile and dropped Robbie back to earth.

Beck stood there wide-eyed, legs splayed, holding Ryder’s face against her neck. Slowly, she lowered her son to the ground and knelt in front of him. “Ryder, this is Mason. He’s our friend. Would you mind hanging out with him for a few minutes while I talk to Daddy?”

The little boy’s lip was pouted out, and his eyes, the same seafoam green of his mother’s, were filling with tears. In a broken whisper, the boy said, “That’s not my dad. He said don’t call him that no more.”

Fuckin’ Robbie.

Beck looked gutted and kissed each of her son’s palms, then patted him on the bottom and watched as he climbed the stairs slowly. When he got to Mason, Ryder arched his neck way back. He looked scared. Mason had that effect on people.

Beck’s gaze lingered on her son as she followed Robbie to the tree line. Geez, Mason wished he could be there, but Beck was strong and had been taking what Robbie dished out for a long time. She could handle herself, and besides…she’d asked him to stay with her son.

Clearing his throat, Mason squatted down to eye-level and said, “What your dad called you…”

“F-freak,” Ryder whispered.

Mason leveled him with a look and gripped his tiny shoulders. And with a slow smile, he said, “You’re not.” Pointing to the first trailer on the left, he said, “You know what kind of shifters live there?”

Ryder’s eyes went round. “They have animals, too?”

Mason nodded. “A great grizzly bear and a white tiger.” He pointed to each trailer as he said, “Silverback gorilla, bear, bear,” and when he pointed to the trailer behind him, he grinned even bigger and said, “You know who lives here?”

“Who?”

Mason chuckled at his little owl
hoo
. “The coolest shifter of all. Your mom. The awesome, fast-flying, sharp-clawed bird of prey, snowy owl.”

“Like me,” Ryder said, the corner of his lips trembling into a smile before it disappeared again.

Mason nodded and pointed to his frail chest. “Just like you.”

“Are you a monster, too?”

“Nah, there’s no monsters here, Ryder. We’re all normal, just like you. You want to guess what kind of animal I have?”

Ryder nodded solemnly. “A bear?”

“Nope.”

“One of Santa’s reindeer?”

Mason laughed and shook his head. “Nope.”

“What are you?”

“I’m a boar shifter.”

“What’s a boar?”

“It’s a big, giant…pig.”

A fit of tinkling giggles shook Ryder’s little shoulders, and the tightness that had been constricting Mason’s chest loosened at the sound of the boy’s laughter. He would be okay. Mason would make sure of it.

Robbie’s yelling reached them on the breeze, and Ryder twisted around, looked scared again, and the next time Mason got a peek at his eyes, they were bright yellow.

“You want to Change?” he asked easily.

“I’m not supposed to.”

“You can Change whenever you want to here. Your mom just Changed last night and flew all around the woods.”

“I cain’t fly yet,” he said in that squeaky voice with the little country accent that was making Mason want to cuddle him up and erase all the damage Robbie had done.

“Ah, but someday you will.”

“All I do is get mad and turn into a little bird and just sit there.”

“Well, that’s what little birds do. You’ll get your flight feathers when you grow up big and strong, and then you can fly all around with your mom.”

Ryder looked off in the direction of Robbie’s yelling, then back at Mason. His eyes were blazing the color of the sun. “I don’t like when he yells at me and Momma. If I Change, you won’t get mad and tell on me?”

“Never. I Change a lot, too.”

“Into a pig?”

Mason grinned. “Yep. Change if you want, and I’ll sit right here and keep you safe, okay?”

Ryder’s little voice dropped to a whisper. “Promise?”

Mason swallowed hard a couple of times. He would bet broken promises to this kid numbered in the hundreds. That wasn’t him, though, and from here on, Mason was going to show him that a man could follow-through and keep his word. “Always.”

And then with a little squeak of pain, Ryder disappeared under his clothes.

Carefully, Mason plucked his green T-shirt away, and his heart froze in his chest as he laid eyes on the tiny, fluffy, gray and white owlet.

Mine.

Choked up on emotion, Mason asked, “Do you want to sit with me?”

Ryder swayed on his feet a few clumsy steps toward Mason, his little curved talons clicking on the wooden board beneath him. He looked up at Mason with those yellow trusting eyes, so much like Beck’s when her animal was close to the surface. He blinked slowly, one eye quicker than the other.

My boy.

As gentle as he could, Mason cupped his hands around Ryder, then rested his back against the side of 1010. And slowly, so he wouldn’t harm one perfect, downy feather on Ryder’s frail body, he cupped the owlet to his chest and let off a trembling breath as he blinked back the burning sensation in his eyes.

My little bird.

When he looked toward the tree line, Robbie’s neck was red and veiny from yelling. Mason locked eyes with Beck, whose face was transforming into the most beautiful smile, like her ex and all his poisonous words had melted away and all she saw was him and Ryder.

Mason returned her smile as a warm, tingling sensation unfurled in his chest.

My family.